Week 61

Albondigas (that means meatballs)

14 March 2011

Hello family,

Here we are after another very solidly successful week in Uruguay. Regrettably, however, I am once again typing on the computer that enjoys putting spaces in random places. Oots.

The weather is finally starting to cool off, but we still have really hot days. Friday it was 38 degrees Celsius which is over 100 Fahrenheit. Wow, but today it`s nice and refreshing. It rained Saturday night so we were worried about church, but God answered our prayers and it was just a sky full of cumulus clouds on Sunday morning. And it turned out that we had one of the best days in church ever. We had at least 65 people there which included 8 investigators and a handful of less actives we are working with (a few who made it for the first time in a long time). Our gospel principles class was full to the max. We had about 20 people in there. It was super cool.

Now for the update on investigators. Javier (who is less active) and his wife Valeria went last week and are now going to get married on the 24th. He`ll baptize her on the 26th of this month. Miguel and Natalia went and are getting married on the 5th of April. They`ll get baptized the week after conference on the 9th. Maria Elena and Gualberto are going this week to get a marriage date. Ramon and Cristina finally went and started the tedious process of divorce (he has to get divorced before he can marry her). So it was a good week all the way around. I`m just super excited that they`re getting baptized even though it`s likely I won`t be here. I was called to this mission for the salvation of souls...so it looks like I find them and others baptize them. I`m ok with that. I am going to miss them a lot though, so I`ll be taking my camera around this week to get photos. The Ward is super happy too. Not to toot our own horn, but I think they`re enjoying having 2 solid missionaries here and they`re excited for these baptisms as well. All of the organizations are getting involved so that they stay active after baptism. Our ward mission leader (as well as my comp and my district leader) are all praying for me to stay. We`ll see what the Lord says.

Thanks for the updates on March madness, NASA, and the tsunami. We heard a little bit about that earthquake, but we were hoping for more details so thanks. Um...sauce.

So for pictures, there is a picture of our owner`s dog. We live in the backyard house of our owners. The dog is cool but kind of psychotic. He barks at us and only us. And occasionally he tries to eat our shoes.

Yeah so anyways, people love us here. In addition to our lunches this week, we are being fed dinner Wednesday and Thursday by two different investigator families. Hooray!

Oh so Saturday night we changed our clocks back...and I think you guys went forward so we`re now only 3 hours apart. It was nice to get more sleep. Word.

I got no mail this past week even though they handed it out. This is the first time in my mission that mail has not come for me when they handed it out. Oh well. There is a first time for everything. Not a huge deal. Remember that transfers were all changed. Pday is still Monday so I`ll be writing in a week to update you on the happenings. Thanks so much for your support and prayers. I love you all pila (that means a lot). :D

Love always,

DJ


P.S. Oots, I forgot to mention that my comp is awesome and we`ve averaged over these 11 weeks so far to have 7 investigators in church each week. That`s super awesome. I`m going to miss Elder Dinkel. Sad face. Oh well...we`ll see what the Lord has in store. :)